A Big Happy Uzumaki Family
by Lord Mendasuit
Summary: Inspired by Lucillia's "A Blond and a Redhead Walk Into a Chunin Exam", premise stolen with permission. Karin calls bull on Naruto's claim to the Uzumaki name. Meanwhile, Naruto is just ecstatic to find out he has family, even if she has... odd ideas about how close family should be.
1. The Fateful Meeting

"I am Uzumaki Naruto, and I-"

Karin could almost hear the violin string within her mind snap. Her clan was the only thing that she put any real value in, because that's the only reason she was of any use to Orochimaru whatsoever. Her medical chakra, the reason her team had even accepted to take her along on this, most important of missions, was a result of her clan's bloodline manifesting in her in an odd way.

Orochimaru had seen what nobody else saw in her. He saw value. Others saw her merely as a source of healing juice, to be used and abused at the leisure of the townsfolk (and some had suggested she be used in other ways). There were reasons, after all, why she chose to follow Orochimaru of her own will. Providing her with an education in shinobi arts as well as a purpose (see the village that betrayed her clan fall) was enough for her to swear loyalty.

And it had been because of her heritage that she had gained such a possibility. So when this blond little fucker claimed to be a member of a clan as great as her own, she did not take kindly to his ignorance. "Bullshit!" she nearly screamed, getting up and glaring angrily at the blond fucker. "I won't let you throw my clan's name around like it belongs to you!"

The blond nearly recoiled. "Clan!?" it seemed he'd focused on that rather than Karin's anger, clearly dismissing everything else upon learning that the Uzumaki were a clan. The nerve of Konoha! How could they let a genin who didn't even know who the Uzumaki were graduate? How could that idiot even claim to belong to such an illustrious clan, said to be descended from the sage himself through the Senju (though Karin's parents, before their deaths, had expressed their belief that it was the other way around)!

"Shut the hell up!" snarled the test's proctor, standing up. "If you're gonna have a lovers' spat you might as well do it outside! If you don't wanna be disqualified you'll park your asses on those chairs and shut up!"

"This is treason to the Uzumaki! How can you let this idiot take our name for granted like that?!" while Karin herself didn't quite know as much as she wanted to about her clan, as Orochimaru's library of information had little in the way of intelligence on them, she at least knew enough. "It's obvious he's not an Uzumaki! He doesn't even have the trademark red hair!" she said, grabbing at her own long, smooth and most important of all, vibrantly red curtain of hair and waving it around.

"I don't know and I don't care!" yelled the proctor. "This is your last warning, genin!"

Karin huffed, and sat down, angrily glaring at the blond moron, who even now looked shocked.

"I'm too an Uzumaki!" Naruto suddenly yelled, glaring at Karin. "So what if I'm blond and not a redhead? What does that have to do with anything!? I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and I'm just awesome enough to be unique, 'ttebayo!"

Karin really should have thought twice, counted to ten, thousand if need be, and tried to calm herself down after sitting down. She should have just ignored the idiot, should have just carried on with the test so as to not upset her lord's plans any more (the fact that she'd called attention to herself already didn't help, since she was supposed to wait for further instructions while making it as far along as possible with the Kusa team she had been assigned to (right down assholes though they might be, both were strong enough to carry her to the finals if they had to... probably...), but...

The idiot had crossed a line by continuing to insult the only thing Karin could truly take pride on, the legacy of her ancestors (for she knew for a fact that her own talents in the Shinobi arts were mediocre at best), and the tenuous control of her emotions was shot to hell.

So she just lunged at the idiot and tried to sock him across the face, but of course he was faster and stronger than her (even if he seemed to be even worse than she was at melee combat... it took TALENT to be worse than her!), so he could subdue her.

"Okay, that's enough! You two, and your teams, get the hell out of this classroom! You're all disqualified!" snarled the proctor, slamming his hand on his desk. When the two were too shocked to move, he glared harder. "NOW!" screamed the angry man, and sheer fright almost saw them fleeing from the room, while their teams, all with angry scowls on their faces, followed them.

Those within the classroom could still hear the sounds of screaming as the verbal fight grew, with the redhead refusing to acknowledge the blond as an Uzumaki.

* * *

"You don't even have the slightest proof! I at least have the red hair!" Karin said, glaring at the idiot, as her team members were off to fetch their teacher. Some part of Karin, one that she didn't want to think about, worried about and feared the consequences of her loss of control. She would either be punished severely or discarded entirely.

No! Orochimaru wouldn't throw her away like that! She was useful! She was valuable! He'd said so himself, when he rescued her!

The silver haired man that had been introduced as Hatake Kakashi, this Naruto guy's teacher, and he seemed outright bored. "We do have papers, you know," he said, conversationally, sighing and rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I realize you're not entirely at fault, Naruto, but you still should've known better..." instructed the man, sounding almost bored.

"B-But Kakashi-sensei, she attacked me! I was gonna do the whole motivational speech thing so that Sakura didn't quit-"

"Sakura was about to do what!?" Kakashi asked, bewildered.

Karin snorted. "That girl is a bloody coward! And rightly so! She has so little chakra that the Shingan had trouble picking her up!" Karin's hands immediately went to stop her mouth from blabbing anything about her bloodline anymore.

Kakashi hummed. "Kagura Shingan, huh?" he asked, raising his one visible eyebrow in clear doubt. Karin felt for his chakra, and it seemed to be as sharp and focused as an arrow pointed at her neck. This was a goddamn pro that was way beyond the pitiful jounin that taught her Kusa teammates. "It seems you really are an Uzumaki, then..."

"So I have family?" asked Naruto, eyes shining.

"So it seems. I was unaware Kushina-nee had any family remaining... You're probably distantly related. Not even cousins, probably," said the silver haired man.

"Kakashi-sensei! You have to punish Naruto! He got us disqualified!" Sakura nearly yelled, breaking into the conversation, obliterating it, and moving on to another topic altogether.

"Hm. Witnesses here tell me you were about to quit, therefore disqualifying your team members, is that true Sakura?" asked Kakashi, looking at Sakura. Karin felt the girl's already tiny chakra withdraw into itself further. She'd been caught and the bravado that permitted her to call out her teammate on his stupidty vanished.

"Pathetic, both of you!" Sasuke nearly snarled, clearly furious. Karin was deeply disgusted by the feel of his chakra. So much hatred and anger. The worst part is that he was actually kind of handsome and his chakra had a mysterious, almost otherwordly feel to it that would be incredibly attractive, if only she could look past the anger, fear and loathing clouding it.

By contrast, the pretend Uzumaki's chakra felt warm, inviting and almost familiar. Much as she hated to admit it, he might actually be an Uzumaki. If they had papers proving his heritage... Then she had found what she'd been looking for since forever. She'd been looking for family, ever since her parents got killed in the line of duty serving Kusa... And now she had it.

And she'd be damned before she let this idiot go. Even if she had to do all those horrible things she'd read about, the ones that happened to Kunoichi that got captured, to get her lord to spare her family. Even if that family was composed of a complete moron and whoever his parents were.

The Uchiha huffed and left in anger, clearly going to vent in a way that wouldn't wind up killing his chances of promotion permanently. The pink haired twit trailed after him like a lovesick puppy, trying to 'cheer him up', as she'd muttered to herself before leaving.

Karin felt sick to see that. Unbeknownst to her, this is utterly hilarious in hindsight when one learns how mindlessly obsessive she would've become, had her temper not been tested by an over-eager idiot. Yep.

"Anyway... if you're truly an Uzumaki... then I've got to meet your parents! They could know so many things about our clan..." even if they'd kept the existence of the clan a secret from him. Maybe they just didn't want him growing up with stories of how great they used to be and how much their situation sucked by comparison? Yeah. It was possible. Her own parents had been against her learning of her heritage, because they'd thought she would feel a deep seated loathing of the people who betrayed them that would lead to her impaling herself against Konoha in a futile attempt at revenge.

Well, they'd been close, but no cigar.

The blond looked dejectedly to the side. Karin suddenly felt very, very stupid. It didn't take a genius to discover that the kid either didn't get along with his parents, which was utterly ludicrous as the Uzumaki family had made it part of their clan motto to look out for their own (and it was, in fact, very nearly ingrained into their heads since childhood), or he had no parents to speak of. He could've been delivered by dying parents to Konoha, who then turned to raise him, keeping him ignorant of his roots to ensure his loyalty to the village.

The Uzumaki were naturally strong in chakra and body, with accelerated healing, powerful and unusual chakra and large reserves of it. This boy's reserves were astronomically huge, and it seemed to run wild and untamed in his body... he was strong and fast despite sucking at hand to hand combat, which meant he didn't train to be that strong and fast. Ergo, those were natural traits.

"Wait... you mentioned a name before. Kushina... That was the name of his mother, right?" asked Karin, turning to the silver haired man.

"Kakashi-sensei.. .you knew my parents!? And you never told me?" the boy seemed actually hurt by that revelation.

Kakashi rolled his eye and leaned against the wall on the far side of the hallway. "You never asked. I knew your mother. Uzumaki Kushina... We called her the Red Hot Blooded Habanero, she had a temper to match the name and was just as much of an arrogant brat as you are. Of course, unlike you, she actually had the skill to back up her claims," said Kakashi, obviously insulting as he spoke. "But that comes with time and a lot of practice," he added, patting Naruto in the head. "It's not as if it is some big secret. I thought you weren't interested."

Karin sighed. She knew the Red Hot Blooded Habanero from the bingo books of ages past. One of Konoha's more obscure legends, mostly because while she led a very succesful career before disappearing altogether, her feats were much smaller than the other legendary figures of the time, such as the Sannin or the legendary Yellow Flash. "I guess that confirms it. We're family."

Naruto felt like his heart was about to burst, like he absolutely had to scream in glee and elation, hug the daylights out of Karin (even if he still wanted to sock her across the face for getting them kicked out of the exam), proclaim to the world how he had family, steal Karin from Kusa, go complain to the Hokage about the whole bloody affair and a lot of other things.

So he settled for grabbing Karin by the hand and dragging her off to do everything he'd always wanted to have a sibling to do with him (hilariously, most of that came from an angry and jealous little boy looking with envy at how a then-young Sasuke played with his elder brother, and what a mess THAT turned out to be).

Such as playing on the swings, on the see-saw, playing Ninja, and doing all sorts of undignified things Karin kept complaining ninja with any sort of dignity or self respect would never be caught doing, and no, just because she laughed until her tummy hurt didn't mean she'd enjoyed playing with the Konohamaru Corps., dammit!

That night, after Karin went back to the hotel room she shared with the team she had come with, Naruto went to sleep with the biggest, goofiest, silliest and happiest grin he'd ever sported on his face. It persisted throughout the entire night, even.


	2. Immodesty

Karin hated, no, loathed her team. She hated them because they were the image of incompetence, laziness and overall stupidity. She didn't know just how Kusa had managed to convince Orochimaru to put her on the same team as THESE jokers. Sure, they were there pretty much just to carry her through the second exam, which Orochimaru had known would be some sort of survival test of some kind, a test Karin would normally be boned in.

But now that she was stuck with them on their hotel room, she was beginning to think it would've been better to take her chances on her own. At least their pervert of a teacher wasn't around. Creepy fucker kept sniffing her panties when he thought she wasn't looking. She'd have put poison on them if she could get away with assassinating him, but she wasn't supposed to kill her teammates.

Yet, anyway.

She laid, on her back, trying to sink into the soft, fluffy mattress. Anything was better than her old and lumpy mattress back in Oto, or the chairs she often arranged into a vaguely bed-like shape and used to sleep in the lab.

"You got us kicked out of the exam! We lost our chance to become chunin!" one of them yelled, clearly pissed but unwilling to try his luck at doing anything other than annoy her. After all, Kusa was on thin ice with regards to their tenuous alliances to both Konoha and Orochimaru. Fear of the alliance with the former breaking had led them to contact Orochimaru just in case, and now they were certain to lose Konoha's allegiance if their cooperation with Orochimaru became known to Konoha.

The redhead rolled her eyes. "Hah! I bet you would've failed the question anyway!" she countered, rolling her eyes. Let it not be unknown that Karin would take any and all chances to make fun of her teammates. That's all they were good for, being the thugs they were. "Besides, do you really think the chunin exams are the only way to be promoted? You have to be really dumb to believe that!"

But she wouldn't explain why. It'd be funnier to watch them struggle to put their heads together and come up with an answer for why that was so.

Deciding not to waste her time with inconsequential nincompoops, Karin threw the covers off herself, revealing her pale flesh as she had slept in her underwear and making both of her 'teammates' glue their stares on her barely clothed behind as she walked, without a care in the world, into the bathroom to take a bath and get the stupid to stop clinging to her.

Some would have asked 'what about the modesty', but she was first and foremost a kunoichi. Modesty is one of the first things Orochimaru's teaching methods had stamped out of her. It was a nuisance if you got distracted because you were nude in front of others or if a nude body could distract you.

Considering that Karin usually slept in the buff (much more comfortable that way), and in the lab Orochimaru had assigned her to (which was staffed by three other people, all of them male), she had actually been annoyed when her teammates asked her to put clothes on, as well as their reaction when she'd walked in on one of them peeing and promptly not given a single damn about it.

As if it was anything she hadn't seen before! She'd seen them in all shapes and sizes, including some well and truly bizarre ones. Oto could be called the village hidden amidst freaks. Her teammates' had been in no way impressive or shocking (and had, in fact, been only remarkable in their generic averageness).

Admittedly, there was ONE good thing about this situation. Her teammates' reactions to her lack of modesty had been hilarious. Their reaction to her disliking perverts despite a lack of modesty had been even further hilarious. Really, it wasn't that complicated. Nudity in and of itself wasn't inherently sexual in nature... to her at least. Now, some creepy fucker sniffing her used underwear? Now THAT was not acceptable.

Once she had begun cleaning herself (so much dirt was clinging to her... she'd been too tired last night to get a proper bath), she began thinking back to what was probably the most fun day of her life. Even if she'd wound up playing with a bunch of nine year old kids, pretending to pretend to be fake ninja (her head spun trying to get around that one) and in all manner of childish games that were really an insult to her status as a mature adult (Oto did take that one seriously)... and yet she'd still had fun.

But that didn't matter in the face of something that had her overwhelmingly happy. She had family! There was a member of her clan that yet lived! Sure, he was a complete and utter idiot, and she wanted to punch him still for accidentally causing her to drop out of the exam (which would probably piss off Orochimaru and wasn't really his fault), but he was still family nonetheless! And he had so much chakra!

He would make strong, healthy babies to continue, and resurrect, the Uzumaki Clan! Oh, she hoped they inherited those bright blue eyes of his... and hopefully they'd get her brain and hair. Nice though his golden blond color might be, it was not the characteristic Uzumaki red. Now that was a thought... there were genes in his ancestry that were powerful enough to stamp out their most common characteristic...

There had been only one clan in recorded history with genes powerful enough to cause that! The cousin clan that claimed the Uzumaki had split off them (Karin knew there were records of her clan dating back to before the reputed time of the Sage of Six Paths, even, so she knew that to be bullshit), the Senju! Karin giggled to herself as she thought of the possibilities! What if one of her children inherited the legendary Mokuton?! Both the Senju and the Uzumaki had large reserves as a clan standard, even if for the Uzumaki 'Normal' was 'Extra Large' for everyone else... Oh, it was just too much to think about!

"Karin, are you masturbating there or something!? Hurry up, I need to use the toilet too!" the voice of one of her teammates cut through her train of thought, and Karin growled in frustration and anger.

"Yes, I am! Now stop interrupting me or it'll take longer! If you wanna use the toilet then just get your ass in here and use it!"

She hated her team.

* * *

"You should've told me you knew!" yelled Naruto, glaring at Kakashi.

"Well... you didn't ask," Kakashi said, shrugging: "I really did think you weren't interested."

Naruto pouted. "Why would I not want to know about my mother?"

"I dunno. I thought you'd already know. I mean, she's in the public records. You could've looked up anyone with the name Uzumaki. Also, she was probably mentioned when talking about the third Shinobi World War, or the famous kunoichi. She might not be very famous to the public, but she does have a larger kill count than the Fourth Hokage," said Kakashi. "Damn right scary, she was."

Deciding that maybe, just maybe, it might have been his own damn fault for never looking up his name anywhere, Naruto decided to let the matter drop. He looked around himself, and saw, to his left, Sasuke beating up a training dummy that was clearly suffering from it. A few feet from him, Sakura watched admiringly, her gaze clearly locked on Sasuke's butt.

Naruto would have noticed, if he was more observant than a potato. Unfortunately, he was not, as he was too busy looking admiringly at Sakura.

Kakashi wondered who he had offended to be cursed with a team that was this dysfunctional. The love triangle was bad enough (he needed to slap some sense into both Sakura and Naruto about that... but how?), but then you had Sasuke's unwillingness to work with Sakura, Naruto's unwillingness to work with Sasuke outside of an emergency and Sakura's unwillingness to work with Naruto.

Well, at least the brawl they'd had earlier had gotten Sasuke's mind off the fact they'd gotten kicked off the exams. Kakashi telling him it was a formality and not the main way of obtaining a promotion to chunin helped to further calm the Uchiha.

Sakura hadn't made much of an issue, considering she'd almost gotten their team kicked off the exams herself and Sasuke had pretty much let the matter drop.

The problem had been with Naruto, who had gotten pissed when Sasuke had called Karin 'that annoying girl', as it was the first time Naruto had someone he could call family and thus he was sensitive over her still. Of course, tensions had dropped since the slugfest that had allowed Sasuke and Naruto to get it out of their systems for the time being, and they hadn't beaten each other up too badly, so they could continue training.

Maybe it hadn't been a good idea to call for a training meeting right after yesterday, but hey, this would help them in the long run... he hoped. For now, Kakashi was trying to figure out a way to get them to work together like they had in Wave again (and hopefully, this time they'd involve Sakura in their plans)... They had worked well when they had a superior opponent...

He had decided to see if beating them up until they got the hint would work, and had called them to gather, when a multicolored, if mostly red, missile struck Naruto.

And just as soon as she'd come, Uzumaki Karin, dressed in a short black skirt and a red jacket, had grabbed Naruto by the arm and dragged him off, against the blond's protest.

"... Did I just hear something about making babies?" Sakura asked, looking slightly green.

Sasuke grunted, though he seemed slightly sympathetic. He knew what it was like to be hounded by people who want your babies.

"... Should we go save him or something?" asked Sakura, looking at her teacher, uncomfortable at the thought of that weird girl doing something to her teammate. For no matter ho much as she disliked Naruto, she was at least loyal enough to the team to try to rescue him from a crazy girl that seemed intent on raping him. Even if she had her doubts about it not being consensual, considering that Naruto was a pervert, no matter how much he claimed not to be, and she knew this.

"I don't think he's in danger, per se, but you probably should. Besides, you'll need a meatshield for our next exercise," said the cheerful jounin. Well, at least he'd get them to work somewhat for each other this way.

"I think we should," Sasuke said, finally. "Naruto's an idiot, but not even he deserves... that... to happen to him."

"Well, if you say so, Sasuke-kun..." Sakura muttered.

First, they set off to following the tracks that the Uzumaki couple left behind them as Karin dragged Naruto away. Those had been easy to follow in the training ground, as Karin's stomps left visible footprints in the soft grass. The problem was the hard packed dirt in the beaten roads that directed one back to the entrance of the training field.

Since following footprints was a bust, Sasuke decided to instead climb to the rooftops to see if they could spot the distinctive bright red of Karin's hair. There were very few redheads in Konoha, and there were also very few people with hair as bright as Naruto's blond. Seeing those two together should be easy, but that was also a bust, as they were short genin and they easily got lots in the crowds of foreigners that had come to witness the Chunin Exams (the genin, their families and their teachers, as well as the teachers' families and tourists and merchants coming early to secure spots in the very public Third Exam).

"Did you see a blond and a redhead pass by here? The redhead might have been dragging the blond along with her," explained Sakura to one of the stall vendors in Konoha's main market street.

The man rubbed his chin. "Pink hair? You must be Sakura-chan, Naruto's teammate. Yeah, they were just by here. I think they make a lovely couple. Kinda remind me of the Fourth Hokage and his Girlfriend, actually. They used to come to my stall all the time, I'll have you know!"

Sakura sighed, seeing that the ramen stall vendor wouldn't offer any information other than that on his own. "I take it he's a regular client here, then? Can you tell me where they went?"

"Yeah. Naruto said to bring his usual to his house once it was ready. My daughter, Ayame, should be a few blocks down that way," said the man, gesturing towards his right. "She can take you if you don't know how to get there. You can't miss her, she's wearing an apron just like mine," he said, gesturing towards the apron that read 'Ichiraku Ramen' on his front.

"Thank you!" Sakura said with a smile.

Sasuke jumped down from the roofs and hit the ground a few feet to the left of Sakura's position, falling two feet short of impacting into someone who was just walking by. Being a ninja village, though, it was a common occurrence and thus nobody paid it much attention. "So you got him?"

"Yes. This way," she said, as she repeated Sasuke's earlier actions and the two shinobi left the ramen stall alone.

Once he was alone, the ramen guy sighed and shook his head. "I know they have their minds on something else, but I pretty much told them who his father is. Is everyone in this village retarded or something?"

Kakashi rolled his eyes as he made himself visible. "Nah, I think she wasn't paying much attention," said the silver haired jounin, as he sat down on a stool. "Get me one bowl of miso!" he called, smiling beneath his mask. "And most of the people who knew Minato and Kushina are in on the secret anyway. It's not like Minato-sensei wanted to keep the secret, considering he told everyone when he found out. Nah, we're just seeing how long it takes for Naruto to figure out that if he asks, we'll tell him. I told him about his mother, and he hasn't made the connection that I might know about his father yet."

"You ninja and your mindgames," said the ramen chef, sighing as he handed Kakashi his bowl. "Wouldn't it be easier to just tell him?"

"It would, yeah... but where's the fun in that?" asked Kakashi, giving the man an eye smile.

"Aren't you keeping an eye on your students?"

That question had a delayed response because Kakashi was busy slurping his ramen, his face hidden by the icha icha book he had buried it into. Damn useful, that thing. Once his mouth was free, Kakashi pulled his mask back up andseemed thoughtful for a few seconds. "I would say that it's not necessary, but given that they might start a political shitstorm if I don't do something..." Kakashi stood up and made a handseal. A single clone popped into existence, whined about being forced to chase after some ungrateful brats and then left. "I wish mine were as willing to kill themselves for the cause as Naruto's are... Now, I want another! Have you changed your recipe recently, Teuchi? 'Cause these kinda taste like genin suffering!"

Ichiraku Teuchi laughed. "I hired a genin team to clean my house and collected their tears of frustration and sorrow," he said, and Kakashi laughed too.


End file.
